A Struggle into Lima.

We arrived in Lima after 2 days of struggling with keeping Penny going. We have had terrible trouble with one cylinder fowling the sparkplug causing numerous stops to replace and clean after spending a day trying to get the mixture correct.

But the great news is we got here under our own steam like every other car in the rally bar the mechanical support vehicle that is coming from Cusco on a lorry.

Since my last post while we rested an extra day in Urubamba we have had a great time. We went straight to Puno when we got away as James was not well after not eating for 36 hour, We complexly missed the Colca Canyon and the Condors to give James an extra rest day in Puno while the rest of the rally caught us up.

I spent the morning in Puno visiting a floating reed island that people live and fish on. There main income now comes from the hundreds of tourists that visit each day. It a very basic lifestyle with the reed islands always needing servicing and new material added.

We departed Puno in separate cars as James took Jaime the photographer for the day while I travelled with John and Fiona in the organisation car. We crossed over the Andes through a high plateau to drop down into Arequipa on the edge of the Peruvian part of Atacama Desert. This was one of the most visually stunning drives of the trip with the morning surrounded be mountains caped with a fresh dusting of snow from the previous nights storms. Then along and very rough track passing between two conical shaped volcanoes over looking Arequipa.

The run up to Lima along the Pacific Coast is both beautiful and amazing with the left side of the road being the biggest ocean on earth and the right side being the driest place on earth. Amongst this desert in the fertile lowlands and river valleys is all the farming that helps feed Peru, with the water coming from the rivers feed from the high Andes were it rain and snows.

Our over night stop was at Nazca with some of us planning a morning flight to visit the Ancient Nazca lines best viewed from the air. This trip was a failed mission with ground control calling us back to base after the first sighting due to visibility. With the expected delay of 1 to 2 hours we gave it a miss so as not to get in to Lima to late.

James and I once again arrived at the hotel last with the support crew hire car following in case we need more help then moral support as we cleaned plugs after every time in slow town traffic causing us problems.

During this trip the decision has been made that when Penny returns to Australia she will get a body taken off the chassis and a total rebuild to try and lessen the annoying little problems we have been troubled by on this trip. She will need to be ready to go into a container next August for Julie and I to partake in the Classic Safari in South Africa during October 2018